The Baker and The Chef

So I've been away from the blog for a little while because I've been working on a special project and I didn't want the person I was doing it for to find out the surprise. M2's best friend in the world is Morgan and yesterday was his 3rd birthday party.

His mom planned a "Mr. Man" themed party for him. The invitations that Abbi made had a picture of him with a graphic of a necktie around his neck. She decorated the room with neckties and she found chocolate mustaches on a stick for everyone to hold in front of their face. Needless to say she's very creative. So when she asked me to make cupcakes to serve at the party I was sweating! My shtick is really yummy goodies but not necessarily anything cute and creative. I thought maybe I would just make a variety of cupcakes and make some sprinkles using the colors from the invitations to coordinate; boring I know, but at least they would taste good. And then, about a week before the party, I had a stroke of genius at 4:30 in the morning... and then couldn't fall back asleep because I was planning.

There's a fabulous site called Bakerella, featuring the most amazing, creative and fun goodies. They say imitation is the best form of flattery so my mission was to emulate some of the cupcakes she makes but re-work them a bit to fit with my own tastes and of course the "Mr. Man" theme of the party. I remembered that Bakerella had visited The Pioneer Woman and made cupcakes that Ree gave instructions for how to decorate, so I also visited that site.

The main thing I changed is that Bakerella uses fondant, and I have a major dislike for fondant, you might even say hatred. I instead made and used chocolate clay. I also used my own chocolate and white cake recipes instead of the recipe they used. I had a blast making the cupcakes, and now all I can think about are other occasions that I can make them for. I've been calling them "Capped Cupcakes" because of the chocolate clay cap. I hope that if Bakerella ever sees my cupcakes she's flattered and not appalled!

Making all the decorations is a major undertaking, so get a cup of coffee and a muffin and sit down for a nice long read... at least there's lots of pictures!

-The Baker

CHOCOLATE CLAY:

10 oz Chocolate

1/3 C Corn Syrup

in a shallow bowl, melt the chocolate in microwave (be careful so that the temperature does not exceed 100 F) for approximately 1 minute; stir. if chocolate is not completely melted, return to microwave for 10 seconds at a time and stir until smooth

add corn syrup to the chocolate and mix well (scrape all the corn syrup into the chocolate with a rubber spatula)

using a rubber spatula, stir and fold mixture, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl well, until no shiny syrup is visible and the mixture forms a thick ball

knead the clay until oil begins to ooze out, this is called "milking'; a lot of oil will come out, keep kneading until the clay is still oily but is starting to melt and feel very sticky in your hands

pour mixture onto parchment paper (or waxed paper); let it sit and stiffen, uncovered, for at least 2 hours then roll into a ball and wrap in plastic until ready to use

use at once or store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 month

your cutouts will harden after a few days at room temperature and can be saved by storing in a cool, dry place

just remember to not overwork the clay or it will begin to lose oil again and become sticky and impossible to work with

Notes: Definitely check out The Pioneer Woman's site for beautiful pictures of the making of the buttercream. I had some pretty nice pictures of me making the buttercream but they were accidentally deleted... sniff sniff... I'm still upset.

About Us

As kids we both had a love of food and grew up watching Julia Child while all our friends were watching Sesame Street. We both decided to go to culinary school where we met, married and had three kids. Now he's an executive chef and I'm a stay at home mom spending part of each day working on the bakery I'll someday open.